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Communism
Communism (Russian Кфммчиism) is a social-economic system based on a society that is without classes and without sovereignty. It is a branch of socialism that dates from the Industrial and French Revolutions.1 It is based also on common ownership of the means of production.2 Communism is the opposite of Capitalism, which guarantees a lower class and upper class. Common Ownership One of the central ideas to communism is that the capital produced by an enterprise or company is not owned by the members of the company but invisibly. This is opposed to capitalism, wherein the members of the company do what they wish with capital. This leads to large companies collapsing suddenly, having large liquidity problems, and most or all of its members are laid off. Common ownership, however, avoids such pitfalls because it does not exploit workers, and commonly owned capital would be applied to good use through reason. Common ownership has surfaced many times in Western civilization before the rise of Marxism. The Spartacus slave revolt in ancient Rome was based on this, and many medieval church systems commonly owned their land and revenue. It should be noted that though Spartacus failed, many people did stand up for him. And churches are still around today, clear proof that common ownership would work if it wanted to! Marxism Karl Marx envisioned modern communism and his writings were adopted by Vladimir Lenin when he overthrew the Russian czars during the Russian Revolution. Russia operated on Marxist-Leninist communism through Stalin and up until the end of the Cold War. Marxism is modern communism. Beliefs Marxism is based on these tenets: * that capitalism exploits workers by the owners of the capital * that people's consciousness of the condition of their lives is based on materials and relations * social classes are based on relationships in production * that material conditions and social relations are historically malleable * in history, the conflicts between classes with different interests drive change and structure historical periods 3 Exploitation Marx believed that capitalism was the exploitation of one class by another. In other words, it works on the basis of paying the worker less than the full value of their labor, in an effort to turn a profit. The profit is not moderated based on risk versus reward. Alienation Marx refers to the alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature." He believes that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others and in so doing generate alienated labour.4 Alienation describes objective features of a person's situation in capitalism - it isn't necessary for them to believe or feel that they are alienated.3 Base and superstructure This is the idea that all the relations among people with regard to “the social production of their existence” forms the economic basis, on which arises a superstructure of political and legal institutions. To the base corresponds religion, philosophy, and other main ideas of society.4 Class consciousness The idea that a social class must possess this awareness of itself and the world around it in order to mount a successful revolution of sociality.needed A revolution like the one Ralph Nader wants to happen to America. Nader needs to get class consciousness, though, so he needs to realize that he'll never win. (How many times has he run? No one really remembers cares.) Ideology Because the ruling class controls the society's means of production, the superstructure of society, as well as its ruling ideas, will be determined according to what is in the ruling class's best interests. Historical materialism An idea that looks for the causes of developments and changes in human societies, in the way that humans as a whole make the means to life, giving an emphasis, through economic analysis, to everything that co-exists with the economic base of society (e.g. social classes, political structures, ideologies), like the rest of the beliefs. Political economy Political economy studies the means of production, specifically capital, and how this manifests itself in economic activity. Marx's theory of history Marx had a very interesting interpretation of history, past, present and yet to come (probably coming from the "when history was written, the last page will say" Bushist philosophy). He thought that all history had, has and will have a timeline based on classes. The Marxist theory of historical materialism understands society as fundamentally determined by the material conditions at any given time - this means the relationships which people enter into with one another in order to fulfill their basic needs, for instance to feed and clothe themselves and their families.5 In general Marx and Engels identified five (and one transitional) successive stages of the development of these material conditions in Western Europe.7 # Primitive Communism: as seen in cooperative tribal societies. Primitive conservatives secretly hide WMDs underneath large rocks as security in case future conservatives need an emergency excuse for an invasion to protect oil imports. # Slave Society: which develops when the tribe becomes a city-state. Aristocracy is born. Conservatives own slaves. # Feudalism: aristocracy is the ruling class. Merchants develop into capitalists. # Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the true working class. ' The rise of the Liberals.' # Socialism: workers gain class consciousness, overthrow the capitalists and take control over the state. Neocons finally defeated! # Communism: a classless and stateless society. Al Gore shall lead the liberal nation to glorious empire upon the moon! Maoism Maoism is a variant of Communism derived from the teachings of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. China is currently communist. Mao Zedong Thought has always been the preferred term by the Communist Party of China and the word Maoism has rarely been used in the English language except pejoratively. Likewise, Maoist groups outside China only began to call themselves Maoist after the death of the man himself, a reflection of Mao's view that he did not change, but only developed, Marxism-Leninism. Contemporary Maoist groups, believing Mao's theories to have been sufficiently substantial additions to the basics of Marxism, have since the 1980s called themselves "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist," "Revolutionary Communist" or simply "Maoist." In China Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, and the reforms of Deng Xiaoping starting in 1978, the role of Mao's ideology within China has radically changed.9 Although Mao Zedong Thought nominally remains the state ideology, Deng's admonition to seek truth from facts means that state policies are judged on their practical consequences and the role of ideology in determining policy has been considerably reduced. Deng also separated Mao from Maoism, making it clear that Mao was fallible and hence that the truth of Maoism comes from observing social consequences rather than by using Mao's quotations as holy writ, as was done in Mao's lifetime. In Cuba Communism works great in Cuba, it works so well people are just desperate to get to Key West to tell the Americans how great communism is, but they do have a good health system. Trotskyism Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist. His politics differed sharply from those of Josef Stalin, most importantly in declaring the need for an international revolution (rather than socialism in one country) and unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the working class based on democratic principles. See Neocons? Communism can work with Democracy! Trotsky was, together with Vladimir Lenin, the most important and well-known leader of the Russian Revolution and the international Communist movement in 1917 and the following years. Nowadays, numerous groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist, although they have developed Trotsky's ideas in different ways. A follower of Trotskyist ideas is usually called a "Trotskyist."10 Definition Trotskyism can be distinguished from other Marxist theories by four key elements: *Support for the strategy of permanent revolution11 *Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the Soviet Union,12 analysis of its features and after 1933, support for political revolution in the Soviet Union and in what Trotskyists term the deformed workers' states; *Support for social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries through working class mass action; *support for working-class internationalism.13 Movement In 1938, Trotsky and the organisations that supported his outlook established the Fourth International. He said that only the Fourth International, basing itself on Lenin's theory of the vanguard party, could lead the world revolution, and that it would need to be built in opposition to both the capitalists and the Stalinists. Join us. We will accomplish revolution and overthrow fat rich white supremacist capitalist Republican conservative fascist statist imperialist Stalinist neocon warmongering rights-violating hatemongering fearmongering racist prodigal antisocialist scaremongering toadish McCarthyist ruling class that is leading the world to the cliff of oblivion! Eurocommunism Eurocommunism is the word that describes more moderate, reformist communist parties in Western Europe. These parties did not support the Soviet Union and denounced its inhumane policies. Such parties were politically active and significant in Italy, France, and Spain.6 Stalinism and the Soviet Union After Lenin, the leader was Josef Stalin, who sort of "tweaked" his predecessor's principles of Marxism and began to massacre his own people. Stalinism, ok, straight-up screwed up Leninism. Stalin is the reason why a lot of people are afraid of communism today. It worked fine under Lenin, but under Stalin, well, he built walls around the edge of the Empire with armed guards ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. And people still tried to escape. Conservapedia's view on Stalinism According to Кфизёяуаредъа, Ronald Reagan personally slayed Stalin.14 With his bare hands.15 Young earth creationist view of Stalinism This section has no content, as YEC's don't know about Stalinism. According to their version of history, you skip the first 84 years of every century. "It's the only way it works," Andrew Schlafly commented. "It's scientificalistic!" a YEC leader said in defense when attacked by seventeen branches of the scientific community. References 1. "Socialism." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Columbia University Press. 03 Feb. 2008. Reference.com. 2. Morris, William. News from nowhere (in English). Retrieved on January 2008. 3. A Dictionary of Sociology, Article: Alienation 4. See Marx: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Preface, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas, and Engels: Anti-Dühring (1877), Introduction General 5. Karl Marx, The German Ideology 6. "Communism," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. 7. Marx makes no claim to have produced a master key to history. Historical materialism is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself". (Marx, Karl, Letter to editor of the Russian paper Otetchestvennye Zapiskym, 1877) His ideas, he explains, are based on a concrete study of the actual conditions that pertained in Europe. 8. On the Revolutionary "Three-In-One" Combination 9. UC Berkeley Journalism - Faculty - Deng's Revolution 10. Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus (1993) 11. cf for instance, Trotsky, Leon, The Permanent Revoultion (1928) and Results and Prospects (1906), New Park Publications, London, (1962) 12. What is Trotskyism (1973) Ernest Mandel 13. Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed, 1936 14. 15. What? It's perfectly plausible! Category:Politics and Government